the upper Yukon region aptly named it the organ duck. These notes 
sound remarkably musical in the quiet twilight hours of the arctic 
spring night. During his courtship the male old-squaw often swims 
back and forth before the female, his long tail-feathers pointing up 
at a steep angle and vibrating rapidly from side to side while he 
utters his mellow notes at short intervals. If he becomes too pressing 
in his suit the female dives, and is instantly followed by the male; a 
moment later they appear on the surface, take wing, and a chase 
ensues, the two plunging below the smooth surface of the water at 
full speed, then reappearing in full flight some distance away, only to 
repeat the performance again and again. Two or three males some¬ 
times join in this playful pursuit of a female until she finally makes a 
choice and retires to some secluded pool with her mate. During these 
courtship-flights the males often continue uttering their love-notes, 
and make a very pretty chorus. 
The mating loons, ducks, geese, swans, cranes, waders, gulls, 
and other birds, now present a bewildering variety of attractions 
to the lover of wild life. Several species of geese are the most clam¬ 
orous of all in their wild outcries. The harsh, rolling notes of the 
cranes, and the raucous notes of the many red-throated, and of the 
Pacific black-throated loons, add greatly to the general sense of wild¬ 
ness on the tundras, especially when the cries of the loons break 
the general stillness that covers the tundra during the twilight hours 
of the northern summer night. 
By the last of August, or during September, the birds have re¬ 
gained their wing-feathers, the tundras are alive with them, and the 
air resounds with the clatter of many geese calling. Ducks, geese, 
curlews, and other birds, seek the dry, sunny slopes where ripe heath- 
berries (Empetrmn nigrum) abound at this time, and feed upon 
them until they become extremely fat. 
Back from the barrens that border the coast of Bering Sea and 
the Arctic Ocean, much of the interior is overgrown with fq^ests of 
birches, spruces, and other subarctic trees. Small birds of mf^y sorts 
come to this wooded area each summer to rear their young; and sev¬ 
eral of them, such as the intermediate white-crowned sparrow, the 
western tree sparrow, and the fox sparrow, range down to the coast of 
Bering Sea wherever little patches of stunted alders and willows 
occur. This area, north to the limit of tree-growth, is enlivened 
through the summer by the songs of the gray-cheeked thrush, the 
robin, and the varied thrush. The white-bellied tree swallow, and 
the bank swallow, share the interior with the barn swallow; the last- 
41 
